


yesterdays

by riseelectric



Category: Starfighter (Comic)
Genre: Character Death, Freeform, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-17
Updated: 2015-11-17
Packaged: 2018-05-02 03:32:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5232338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riseelectric/pseuds/riseelectric
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abel doesn't survive Project Thebes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



_every lament is a lovesong_

 

_He's standing alone on the docking bay, dead-eyed and holding in loose fingers a ticket back to the colonies when Deimos comes up quietly behind him. Taps him on the shoulder to get his attention. When Deimos re-introduces himself with his real name, Cain stays silent. His own he'd given to Abel the night before that final battle, and with Abel alone it would stay._

_Both buried where Cain couldn't follow._

_Deimos understood when Cain did not react, didn't press him for any kind of response at all. He even continued to answer to his task name, which Cain continued calling him by. The little fighter understood too much; always had, always would, even when Cain didn't._

_There's little talk between them, but when he finally goes, it's with Deimos to Earth. Not because he wants to, but at Deimos' insistence._

_Too tired to put up a fight -- any fight --anymore._

* * *

Cain is different. They all are, what's left of them returning from ‘teron space with haunted looks in their eyes that hadn't been there when they left, but the Cain that Deimos takes to their new home is quiet and subdued, like he's fading away already. All his straight-backed arrogance seems to have been wrenched from him, like a coat that's been forcibly torn off, leaving him to shiver. His shoulders hunched and his face haggard from carrying the weight of Abel's ghost, but unable to lay it to rest.

Two shadows in one mirror with the universe between them.

It breaks Deimos' heart.

Not so long ago, this is what he thought he yearned for. For Abel to be out of the way, for Cain to be his and his alone.

Wasn’t there an Earth saying? ‘Be careful what you wish for’?

This hollowed-out Cain isn't what he wanted. This Cain did not cry, but he did not smile, laugh, or even anger. He simply is, and Deimos cannot decide if this is maturity or numbness, this Cain that operated like clockwork. Cain, who did not go out any more than was necessary, who left the apartment to do god knew what, or to acquire the necessities required for mundane everyday life, usually at Deimos' request.

He's so quiet. He also smokes far, far too much, and Deimos can't tell if Cain is doing it to kill himself or to cope. Deimos doesn't let his thoughts stray too far down either option. What Deimos does do isn't much better, but it's the only thing he can think of.

He lets Cain be. Waits for him to come back because he's _Cain_ and Cain's never let anything get in his way, not then, so why should death stop him from living now?

Then--

\-- then _hurt_ settled in and began doing just that, and Deimos doesn't know why he didn't see this coming.

In hindsight, it only goes to show just how blind he is when it comes to Cain.


	2. Chapter 2

Time rots everything. Even numbness had to gradually fade, only to be replaced by increments of self-destruction, so slowly and insidiously that by the time Deimos noticed the changes, it was already too late to prevent them.

To say that it begins with Cain coming home one night with his knuckles bruised and a bleeding _eye_ wouldn't be wrong, but it wouldn't be accurate either.

Instead: it begins aboard the space station. It begins the day Cain is assigned his third navigator, his last chance.

It begins with Abel worming his way into Cain's heart, only the apple metaphor doesn't quite work here because Cain's core was already halfway rotted before Abel came along, and that's not Abel's fault. Deimos knows guys like Cain, has known them all his life in their various shapes and forms-- which is not to say he admires or even likes them; he never has. Cain is the sole exception. But even at the worst of his infatuation, Deimos has never pretended that Cain is something other than what he is. There's something almost unsettling about the front Cain keeps up, something too smooth and downright dissonant with who he truly is once you saw past the facade to jagged edges of him, all raw and bloodied and frayed. Guys like that couldn't be trusted, and Deimos was smart enough not to.

Abel did, though. And look how well that turned out.

Cain cleaned up well enough, admittedly. The success of such a vital mission had earned him a one-way ticket to wherever he wanted after he left the military, and his and Abel's tasknames would almost certainly go on to be recorded in the history books as the brave, sacrificial soldiers who turned the tide of the war. The Alliance was willing to provide for Cain for the rest of his life, but of course they wished for him to continue his service, to be a role model for every other fighter, to use his newly acquired hero status to set an example. Deimos doesn't think Cain's ever had so many high expectations thrust upon him before, and for a while, Cain lived up to them.

Until the incident count got too high.

The Alliance thought Cain would recover from Project Thebes. That's why they picked him for it. Thought Cain wouldn't be the type to snap, to be able to come back laid low but still fighting, to return as the best of the best and carry _on._

Because they're fucking morons.

In the end, they chose to wash their hands of him, like they did with all their pawns, saying good riddance without another look back. He was given every excuse and chance, after all, but no longer could Cain continue to be their poster child, not with the returned results of his recent psychological evaluations, and not with his new navigators too frightened of Cain to function as a team.

Deimos doesn't particularly care about Cain's navigators. He doesn't like Abel. Would have downright continued hating him if the navigator's death hadn't sucked most of the venom out of him. Some part of him, the 3am voice, whispers that it's because from the moment Abel stepped into Cain's life Deimos never stood a chance. That there was never any hope even from the beginning, and Deimos knows that is the truth.

Well, Abel's free now. Free from the war, free from everything he's ever known. Gone. And Deimos would be all right with that except Abel's taken Cain with him. Hadn't even bothered with taking _all_ of Cain with him, leaving behind the fragmented remnants for Deimos to pick up and try to piece together. Cain would have gone willingly with the navigator, Deimos knows, both of them soaring away on death's wings, except Cain's own hold on life is too strong, whether he wants it to be or not. Too fundamentally _stubborn_ to die. Just another pesky habit of growing up colonial.

Deimos would never be free of Abel. He realises that now.

That's enough for Deimos to hate Abel all over again, sure, but that's not it. Not entirely. When death tore Abel away, he ripped Cain in half. In life, Abel left nothing for Deimos. In death, he leaves less than nothing. So Deimos took Cain away. Took him elsewhere, where Cain couldn't be reminded of Abel and anything and everything to do with the dead nav, took him away from it all. Strangely enough, doing so took the fight out of Cain as well. Deimos thought it was progress. It wasn't.

So in short, Deimos hates Abel, but it has more to do with the fact that Cain comes home one night with some guy's blood staining his fists and his own dripping from both his temple and his eye, sprinkling a trail of it all the way from the front door to the kitchen as Cain heads straight for the fridge.

They live in the colonial area of town, with a trashy bar just a few blocks away. It's got a bad rep, where by eleven you couldn't walk two feet without scratching some gang member's tattoo. Everyone knows that by twelve, no one is more angry, drunk, and brawl-happy than the lot at  _Pivnaya na Marshala._ Everyone except Cain, apparently.

For a moment, the sight is so familiar that Deimos does not give Cain's appearance another glance. Just another night on the _Sleipnir_.

And then what he just saw registers in his mind and Deimos' head snaps back up sharply, his breath catching in his chest. Something with barbs begins winding around his ribcage, constricting it, making it difficult to breathe.

"Cain?"

"Yeah?" Cain replies, and something between disappointment and alarm forms in Deimos' throat, because Deimos can tell he's drunk just from that one word alone. Cain's always liked his liquor, but not like this. Wrong time, wrong place, wrong everything. He thought he'd been waiting for Cain to take his first steps forward, but this is indubitably a slide back. Deimos's chest aches. Cain's been slipping this whole time and he hadn't even _noticed._

He stands and heads towards Cain, who's swaying while he presses a cold can to his bleeding head. As Deimos approaches him with his hand outstretched, his eye narrows dangerously. Eye. Singular. Because his other one is gashed, swollen shut, and as Deimos watches, a red tear leaks out from its corner.

Deimos swallows, then grabs him by the forearm anyway. He's afraid, but not of the ways Cain can hurt him if he so chooses.

"Let me see," Deimos says, and Cain snarls at him, tries to pull away.

"Don't fucking touch me."

It's the first sentence Cain has said to him in over two weeks. Deimos tugs him back firmly, giving him a look.

"You're bleeding."

"So will _you_  if you don't let go."

Deimos doesn't let go. He feels the tremors running through Cain's body uncontrollably.

He reaches up, and Cain's cheek feels the same. Skin burning hot beneath his fingertips.

Something in Cain's face crumples at the touch, and for a brief moment both his eyes shut. His grip around the cold beer can is white-knuckled and shaking.

"Come on," Deimos says finally, and when he pulls again, Cain allows him to sit him down onto a chair at the dining table. Cain's shoulders slouched and his whole body sagging even as he rests back against the seat. His good eye like an open wound as he watches Deimos move about the room, looking for the first-aid kit.

This, Deimos reflects, this is what Abel has left behind, his fucking _legacy_. He and Cain were supposed to come back from the war together, to win the battle and save the day and come home, fulfilling each other's lives for happily ever after. They were supposed to settle down in domesticity, and after a few years maybe they'd even get matching rings to wear around their necks. A beautiful ending for two people who completed each other more fully and absolutely than anything or anyone else ever would.

But somewhere along the way, something went wrong. One of them _died_ and simply never came back, and here is the end product: an overgrown punk with a fuse shot to hell, sullen and silent and broken until someone just looks at him the wrong way, and then it's time to _do_ the breaking, complete with shattered noses and fractured bones and it doesn't fucking matter because every emotion is eaten up alive by the void inside.

Simply put, Abel ruined Cain. And Cain is stumbling now, never having learnt to deal with this kind of agony, having missed some sort of crucial development growing up like every other colonial bastard. Labeled 'unstable' by the military itself, with nowhere to go. Footloose.

Deimos doesn't bother asking him how much he's had to drink. He can smell it for himself, along with the blood and the smoke clinging to the air.

"How many?" he asks instead as he brushes Cain's bangs back from his face gently, running an alcohol-soaked cotton across the gashes on his forehead and across his brow.

A minute passes in silence. Two. Then five.

Deimos has already put the question out of his mind when Cain answers him.

"Five. One had rings." Cain grunts, and Deimos thinks, well that's one mystery solved. Cain tries to twitch away, but Deimos follows him persistently, wiping the wounds clean.

Another hiss. The lacerations on Cain's forehead are taken care of, but he jerks away reflexively when Deimos tries to pry open his eye to see the damage.

" _Bastards,_ " Cain suddenly says in Russian, to Deimos' quiet surprise. " _talkin' like their shit don't stink._ " and Deimos knows it's about the Alliance, it has to be. Being raised up by the military as a war hero meant nothing to most colonials; as far as they were concerned, it only meant being the biggest bitch of the military of all. As for the Earthers, they thought it was only natural for colony-born to be cannon fodder for them. Either way, no one appreciates a fighter of the Federated Alliance. No one cares about those that had been sent up there to fight, to die.

Deimos says nothing, working quietly, not wanting to disrupt this rare moment when Cain actually spoke to him anymore. In any case this routine is nothing new to them; in a way, it's almost comforting, like the old days aboard the _Sleipnir_ when Cain came to him to be bandaged and his hurts treated because it wasn't as if he could go to medical about those particular injuries. Cain's never felt uncomfortable about licking his wounds in front of Deimos; it's gratifying to know that after all this time, that's one thing that hasn't changed. Yet.

"I would have knifed them," Cain continues, back in English this time.

His next remark is off-handed, casual. "then I remembered _you_ had it. You took it from me."

Deimos pauses. He catches Cain's gaze, which has turned hard and cold, both eyes open and looking at him even as another bloody tear slipped from the right one. He's missing something here, something in the air that's just changed.

Deimos smells blood in the water.

"Yes, I still have it." he says quietly, meeting Cain's eyes unflinchingly even as he quells the apprehension rising within him. "I can't trust you with it, Cain. Not... not yet."

"That so?"

"Yes."

The silence stretches onward. Deimos' shoulders tense.

Then Cain looks away, his right eye closing again as he curses with the pain, and the tension in the room eases. "Fuck, this shit hurts. Feels like I'm going blind."

Deimos slumps slightly with relief. He'd gotten a good look at the eye, and there doesn't seem to be lasting damage to it.

"You won't." He picks up the dropper and this time Cain lets him hold his eyelid open while he drips medication into it without jerking away, though he does grit his teeth.

As Deimos finishes bandaging Cain's head, securing gauze to cover his wounded eye, Cain speaks up again. "You're a real good fixer-upper, aren't you. How'd that happen, huh?"

Deimos would have answered, if it weren't for the underlying meanness in his tone. Cain's always been unpredictable, even more so now that his mood seems to be vacillating between vicious and unreadable. Right now, it's both.

"I'm just trying to help," Deimos says even more quietly, tying the bandage together with a final knot. Cain snorts derisively, standing up. He breathes into Deimos' face, and Deimos grimaces at the alcohol on his breath.

"You're a fucking pushover."

"You misjudge me."

"Go fuck yourself."

 _Why not you?_  

But outwardly, Deimos just turns away. He listens to the sound of Cain shrugging on his jacket, moving about the room. He's sobered up. Enough for him to want to leave again.

"Be back later," Cain mutters as he opens the door. There's the snap of a lighter, and Deimos smells smoke.

He still has his back turned to Cain. He should say something, stop Cain from leaving.

He hesitates a moment too long. By the time he turns around, mouth opening, Cain's gone.

Deimos doesn't follow.


End file.
